More than 280 illegal immigrants were arrested at a business in Texas during a raid by federal immigration authorities on April 3.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers raided the CVE Technology Group and four of the group’s staffing companies in Allen. The group is a telecommunications equipment repair business.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations conducted the raid after receiving multiple tips that the company hired illegal aliens despite knowing they were unable to work under federal law.
Administrators also knew that other employees were using fraudulent identification documents, ICE said after reviewing forms filed by the company.
“Businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens create an unfair advantage over their competing businesses,” said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge in Dallas Katrina Berger in a statement. “In addition, they take jobs away from U.S. citizens and legal residents, and they create an atmosphere poised for exploiting their illegal workforce.”
More than 280 illegal aliens were detained during the raid and will be fingerprinted and processed for removal from the United States, immigration officials said.
The investigations unit is responsible for upholding the laws established by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which required employers to verify the identity and work eligibility of the individuals they hire, ICE said, noting that unauthorized workers often use stolen identities to gain work.
Berger said during a press conference that federal hiring laws require new hires to fill out I-9 forms, adding that the laws perform “necessary and commonsense functions.”
“They ensure U.S. citizens and legal U.S. residents are hired for jobs in the U.S.,” Berger said, reported KERA. “They also ensure that illegal workers are not preyed upon or paid less than the going wage or otherwise coerced or cheated or subjected to unsafe working conditions without any means of complaint.”
CVE has 2,100 employees and is the third-largest employer in Allen after the Allen Independent School District and a retailer, the Village at Allen and the Village at Fairview.
Raul M., one of the family members of employees, said that the families were taken by surprise by the raid even as he seemed to admit his mother, Sara, was working illegally.
[HAPPENING NOW]: ICE conducted an operation at CVE Technology Group, a cell phone repair business, this morning. Many have gathered outside the Allen business, waiting to hear from loved ones. @wfaa pic.twitter.com/UhnBHjA9Rr
— Ariel Plasencia (@ariel_plasencia) April 3, 2019
“I’m really worried about what’s going to happen next. Are they really going to take her? I really don’t know,” he told the Allen American.
Summer Gonzalez of the League of United Latin American Citizens said that there are people in the area who are illegally in the country.
“They’re here. They’re working their best to fit in and assimilate into a corporate America working environment,” she said. “Their children are in our schools, but because it is so hard to obtain citizenship, people are not able.”
At this @ICEgov enforcement action, there are at least three buses in the back of the CVE Technology Group factory. Several workers say that Apple and Samsung phones are made inside. 5/ pic.twitter.com/Cf4XKDMbwg
— Dianne Solis (@disolis) April 3, 2019
Edgar Arrubia was also outside the business; he told WFAA that his fiance works as a supervisor at the CVE warehouse.
“I was at home and she called me from somebody else’s cell phone,” he said. “She’s probably going to be detained and they’re going to try to deport her.”
Arrubia said he’s an American citizen and that he and his fiance are scheduled to get married on May 18.
“I’m feeling really sad,” he added. I’m scared to think what’s going to happen to her.”